For one, New York is still recovering from a pair of recent spending sprees that added crippling payroll obligations and have yielded mixed results on the field. The first came in 2009 and the second in 2014.

The 2016 Yankees sit at 22-23 entering play Thursday, 6.5 games out in the American League East. They're not sunk. They've won seven of their last 10, and the East is a wide-open division—even with the powerful Boston Red Sox pacing ...